Edinburgh, Liverpool, and other large towns. On April 7th, "the Crown
and Government Security Bill," commonly called "the Gagging Act," was
introduced by the Government, the first reading carried by 265 to 24,
and the second a few days later by 452 to 35. On the 10th of April the
Government had to fill London with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington
in command, who barricaded the bridges and Downing Street, garrisoned the
Bank and other public buildings, and closed the Horse Guards.

When the momentary crisis had passed, the old soldier declared in the House
of Lords that "no great society had ever suffered as London had during the
preceding days," while the Home Secretary telegraphed to all the chief
magistrates of the kingdom the joyful news that the peace had been kept
in London. In April, the Lord Chancellor, in introducing the Crown and
Government Security Bill in the House of Lords, referred to the fact
that "meetings were daily held, not only in London, but in most of the
manufacturing towns, the avowed object of which was to array the people
against the constituted authority of these realms." For months afterwards
the Chartist movement, though plainly subsiding, kept the Government in
constant anxiety; and again in June, the Bank, the Mint, the Custom House,
and other public offices were filled with troops, and the Houses of
Parliament were not only garrisoned but provisioned as if for a siege.

From that time, all fear of serious danger passed away. The Chartists were
completely discouraged, and their leaders in prison; and the upper and
middle classes were recovering rapidly from the alarm which had converted
a million of them into special constables, and were beginning to doubt
whether the crisis had been so serious after all, whether the disaffection
had ever been more than skin deep. At this juncture a series of articles
appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ on "London Labour and the London Poor,"
which startled the well-to-do classes out of their jubilant and scornful